North Texas home prices rose 6.7 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago.

Dallas-Fort Worth had the biggest home price gains in Texas in the final months of 2017.

Median home sales prices in D-FW were up 6.7 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2016, according to a just-released report from the National Association of Realtors.

North Texas' price rise was higher than the nationwide year-over-year increase of 5.3 percent.

But the rate of home appreciation in the D-FW area has cooled significantly since earlier in 2017, when local home prices were up by double-digit percentages from a year earlier.

A slight increase in homes available for sale in the area and higher finance costs are moderating price gains, analysts say.

"While tight supply is expected to keep home prices on an upward trajectory in most metro areas in 2018, both the uptick in mortgage rates and the impact of the new tax law on some high-cost markets could cause price growth to moderate nationally," Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun said in the report.

In many markets, he said, the big home price gains have far outpaced the growth of homebuyer incomes.

"Remarkably, home prices have risen a cumulative 48 percent since 2011, yet during this same time frame, incomes are up only 15 percent," Yun said. "In the West region, where very healthy labor markets are driving demand, the gap is even wider."

D-FW home prices hit an all-time high in 2017 and are now almost 65 percent higher than they were in 2011, according to the Realtors data.

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The biggest fourth-quarter 2017 home price increase was in San Jose, Calif., where prices jumped 26.4 percent, followed by Reno, Nev., up 15.6 percent from a year earlier.

Home prices at year-end were down in more than a dozen U.S. metro areas, with the worst decline in Glen Falls, N.Y. — down 11.6 percent from fourth-quarter 2016, the Realtors said.

In Texas, the only markets to see significant declines were Wichita Falls, down 7.1 percent, and Corpus Christi, where prices were 6.1 percent lower.

Home prices in Houston were up 2.4 percent from a year earlier, and prices were 1.9 percent higher in Austin. San Antonio recorded a 5.6 percent annual price gain in the fourth quarter.